This is what the Bannerman finds so distasteful about the Christmas season. Santa bashing. Every year the big guy in the red suit cops a blasting from some quarter over his health, his love for antelopes, fear-factoring children into believing they might not have been good enough, or as this year evolves, rampant consumerism. Yes indeed, that IS what Christmas is all about, isn’t it? Rampant consumerism? Buy gifts! Spend money that you don’t have buying things you can’t afford for people you don’t like. That’s Christmas, people. Get used to it. Santa’s just doing his bit to further the ethos.

Religion, Bannerman hears you shriek? What religion? Taoism? Buddhism? Islam? Oooooh, you mean Christianity, that doyen of all organised war-mongering, wealth-gathering, political-power garnering religions. Well, yes indeed, if you’re that way inclined, Bannerman recommends that you do indeed supplant the Santa ideal with one of sanctity and piety in remembrance of a mythical and supposedly long dead Jewish carpenter, turned political activist. Although why you’d want to forego all that alcoholic spirituality and gluttonous joy at this time of year to sit quietly pondering the words of an individual like Steve McNeilly simply escapes your Bannerman.

No, you get on with it, Santa! Don’t pay any attention to the grinches in their churches and grandiose meeting halls. Fill your snacks and make sure Rudolph’s nose is bright enough to find your way through those ever-changing international flightpaths. Oh, by the by, Santa……shouldn’t you be filling sacks, rather than feeding your face?